}

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Republicans not embracing 'tolerance'


This video from Right Wing Watch shows that the Republican Party is now a theocratic party, and on purpose:
“Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, assures CBN's David Brody that the GOP is not becoming more tolerant, just more loving and Christian.”
CBN is the TV network founded by TV preacher Pat Robertson, which has consistently taken a hard-right theocratic angle on the stories and issues they cover, epitomised by the often loopy Robertson. So it could be argued that Priebus was merely pandering to his party’s hard right religious base.

However, the evidence is clear that the Republican Party has morphed into something quite ugly, as I pointed out here and also here. This is no longer the party of Eisenhower or Dirksen or even of Reagan; it’s now the party of far right extremists and nutjobs who either are radical “Christians” or use those who are to gain power.

So, based on the evidence at hand, it's pretty clear that Preibus wasn’t merely pandering to CBN viewers: His party really has slid off the deep end. And they like it that way just fine, thank you. Besides, he has no need to pander to his party’s base: They can’t lose elections.

The party has so gamed the electoral system, aided and abetted by the rightwing majority on the US Supreme Court in the vile Citizens United case and when it gutted the Voting Rights Act, that it’s almost impossible for Republicans to lose power without a massive movement to dump them, and that seems unlikely.

So, it doesn’t really matter what I think about this nor even what mainstream voters think: The Republicans will stay in power for years to come, and no god will have anything to do with that: Human greed and chicanery will.

Update August 1, 2013: Writing on MaddowBlog, Steve Benen says that the problem here is: “Most Republican voters apparently see literally the most extreme major political party in the post-Civil War era of the United States and think, ‘Nah, too moderate.’” I think that this could explain why Preibus not only dismisses moderating the party, but doubles-down on its extremism.

1 comment:

rogerogreen said...

One thing I agree with Priebus: I am not fond of the word "tolerance," either. We may have different reasons why, though.